The Principality of Transylvania (; ; ; ; ) was a semi-independent state ruled by Hungarian princes. It existed as an Ottoman vassal state for the majority of the 16th and 17th centuries, overseen by Ottoman Turkish sultans. At various points during this period, the Habsburgs also exerted a degree of suzerainty in the region.Dennis P. Hupchick, Conflict and Chaos in Eastern Europe, Palgrave Macmillan, 1995, p. 62Peter F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe under Ottoman rule, 1354–1804, University of Washington Press, 1993, pp. 150–154 Its territory, in addition to the traditional Transylvanian lands, also included the other major component called Partium, which was in some periods comparable in size with Transylvania proper. The establishment of the principality was connected to the Treaty of Speyer.Richard C. Frucht, Eastern Europe: An Introduction to the People, Lands, and Culture, Volume 1, ABC-CLIO, 2004, p. 408 However, Stephen Báthory's status as king of Poland also helped to phase in the name Principality of Transylvania.Katalin Péter, Beloved Children: History of Aristocratic Childhood in Hungary in the Early Modern Age, Central European University Press, 2001, p. 27

The principality continued to be a part of the Lands of the Hungarian CrownMartyn Rady, Customary Law in Hungary: Courts, Texts, and the Tripartitum, Oxford University Press, 2015, p. 141, and was a symbol of the survival of Hungarian statehood.Károly Kocsis, Eszter Kocsisné Hodosi, Ethnic Geography of the Hungarian Minorities in the Carpathian Basin, Simon Publications LLC, 1998, p. 106 It represented Hungarian interests against Habsburg encroachments in the Habsburg-ruled Kingdom of Hungary.Transylvania article of Encyclopædia Britannica Traditional Hungarian law had to be followed scrupulously in the principality; furthermore, the state was predominantly Protestant.István Lázár, Hungary, a Brief History, 1989, After the unsettled period of Rákóczi's War of Independence, it was subordinated to the Habsburg monarchy.

Background Eastern Hungarian Kingdom and Zápolya family

On 29 August 1526, the army of Sultan Suleiman of the Ottoman Empire inflicted a decisive defeat on the Hungarian forces at Mohács. John Zápolya was en route to the battlefield with his sizable army but did not participate in the battle for unknown reasons. The youthful King Louis II of Hungary and Bohemia fell in battle, as did many of his soldiers. When Zápolya was proclaimed king of Hungary, Ferdinand from the House of Habsburg also claimed the throne. In the ensuing struggle, John Zápolya received the support of Suleiman, who after Zápolya's death in 1540, occupied Buda and central Hungary in 1541 under the pretext of protecting Zápolya's son, John II Sigismund. Hungary was now divided into three sections: Royal Hungary in the west and north, Ottoman Hungary, and the Eastern Hungarian Kingdom under Ottoman suzerainty, which later became the Principality of Transylvania, where Austrian and Turkish influences vied for supremacy for nearly two centuries. The Hungarian magnates of Transylvania resorted to a policy of duplicity in order to preserve independence.

Transylvania was administrated by Isabella, John Sigismund's mother, from 1541 to 1551, when it fell for five years under Habsburg rule (1551–1556). The House of Zapolya regained the control of Transylvania in 1556,Peter F. Sugar, Southeastern Europe Under Ottoman Rule, 1354–1804, p. 332 when the Diet of Szászsebes elected Sigismund as prince of Transylvania.

Transylvania was now beyond the reach of Catholic religious authority, allowing Lutheran and Calvinist preaching to flourish. In 1563, Giorgio Blandrata was appointed as court physician, and his radical religious ideas increasingly influenced both the young king John II and the Calvinist bishop Francis David, eventually converting both to the Anti-Trinitarian (Unitarian) creed. In a formal public disputation, Francis David prevailed over the Calvinist Peter Melius; resulting in 1568 in the formal adoption of individual freedom of religious expression under the Edict of Torda. This was the first such legal guarantee of religious freedom in Christian Europe, but only for Lutherans, Calvinists, Unitarians and Catholics; Eastern Orthodox Christians being "tolerated" with no legal guarantees granted.

Principality of Transylvania

The Principality of Transylvania was established in 1570 when John II renounced his claim as King of Hungary in the Treaty of Speyer (ratified in 1571),Diarmaid MacCulloch, The Reformation, Viking, 2004, p. 443Instytut Historii (Polska Akademia Nauk), Historický ústav (Akademie věd České republiky), Political Culture in Central Europe: Middle Ages and early modern era, Institute of History, Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 2005, p. 338 and became a Transylvanian prince.István Keul, Early Modern Religious Communities in East-Central Europe: Ethnic Diversity, Denominational Plurality, and Corporative Politics in the Principality of Transylvania (1526–1691), Brill, 2009, p. 61 The treaty also recognized that the Principality of Transylvania belonged to the Kingdom of Hungary in the sense of public law.Anthony Endrey, The Holy Crown of Hungary, Hungarian Institute, 1978, p. 70 Upon the death of John II in 1571 the Royal House of Báthory came to power and ruled Transylvania as princes under the Ottomans, and briefly under Habsburg suzerainty, until 1602. Their rise to power marked the beginning of the Principality of Transylvania as a semi-independent state.

Prince Stephen Báthory was the first powerful prince of independent Transylvania, a Hungarian Catholic who later became king under the name Stephen Báthory of Poland. He undertook to maintain the religious liberty granted by the Edict of Torda but interpreted this obligation in an increasingly restricted sense. The latter period of Báthory rule saw Transylvania under Sigismund Báthory – prince of the Holy Roman Empire – enter the Long War, which started as a Christian alliance against the Turks and became a four-sided conflict involving Transylvania, the Habsburgs, the Ottomans, and the voivode of Wallachia, Michael the Brave. After 1601 the principality was for a short time under the rule of Rudolf II, who initiated the Germanization of the population, and in order to reclaim the Principality for Catholicism he initiated the Counter Reformation. From 1604 to 1606, the Hungarian nobleman Stephen Bocskay led a successful rebellion against Austrian rule. Bocskay was elected Prince of Transylvania on 5 April 1603 and prince of Hungary two months later. He achieved the Peace of Vienna in 1606. which afforded religious liberty and political autonomy, the restoration of all confiscated estates, the repeal of all "unrighteous" judgments, and a complete retroactive amnesty for all Hungarians in Royal Hungary, as well as his own recognition as the independent sovereign prince of an enlarged Principality of Transylvania. The Treaty of Vienna (1606) guaranteed the right of Transylvanians to elect their own independent princes, but Georg Keglević, who was the Commander-in-chief, General, Vice-Ban of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia, was since 1602 Baron in Transylvania. It was a very difficult and complicated peace treaty after a long war.

Under Bocskay's successors Transylvania had its golden age, especially under the reigns of Gábor Bethlen and George I Rákóczi. Gábor Bethlen, who reigned from 1613 to 1629, perpetually thwarted all efforts of the emperor to oppress or circumvent his subjects, and won reputation abroad by championing the Protestant cause. Three times he waged war on the emperor, twice he was proclaimed King of Hungary, and by the Peace of Nikolsburg (31 December 1621), he obtained for the Protestants a confirmation of the Treaty of Vienna, and for himself seven additional counties in northern Hungary. Bethlen's successor, George I Rákóczi, was equally successful. His principal achievement was the Peace of Linz (16 September 1645), the last political triumph of Hungarian Protestantism, in which the emperor was forced to confirm again the articles of the Peace of Vienna. Gabriel Bethlen and George I Rákóczi also did much for education and culture, and their era has justly been called the golden era of Transylvania. They lavished money on the embellishment of their capital, Alba Iulia, which became the main bulwark of Protestantism in Eastern Europe. During their reign, Transylvania was also one of the few European countries where Catholics, Calvinists, Lutherans, and Unitarians lived in mutual tolerance, all of them belonging to the officially accepted religions – religiones receptae, while the Orthodox church, however, were only tolerated. In 1657, George II Rákóczi invaded the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

The fall of Nagyvárad to the expansionist Ottomans on 27 August 1660 marked the decline of the Principality. To counter the Ottoman threat, the Habsburgs determined to gain influence in and perhaps control of this territory. Under Prince Kemeny, the diet of Transylvania proclaimed the secession of a sovereign Transylvania from the Ottomans (April 1661) and appealed for help to Vienna, but a secret Habsburg-Ottoman agreement resulted in the further increase of Habsburg influence. After the defeat of the Ottomans at the Battle of Vienna in 1683, the Habsburgs gradually began to impose their rule on the formerly autonomous Transylvania. Following the 1699 Treaty of Karlowitz, Transylvania was formally attached to Habsburg-controlled Hungary,Transylvania; The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Columbia University Press. and subjected to the direct rule of the emperor's governors. From 1711 onward, Habsburg control over Transylvania was consolidated, and the princes of Transylvania were replaced with governors.

Demographics

Ruling system Until 1691 Transylvania was ruled by Unio Trium Nationum, the three state-constituting socio-ethnical entities termed "nations", consisting of the Hungarian nobility, the Saxon urban settlers, and the Székely peasant-soldiers, while a significant part of the general population, consisted of Orthodox Romanians, remained deprived of any civil and political rights.Religiones and Nationes in Transylvania During the 16th Century: Between Acceptance and Exclusion

The Composition of the Parliament The Unio Trium Nationum (Latin for "Union of the Three Nations") was a pact of mutual aid codified in 1438 by three Estates of Transylvania: the (largely Hungarian) nobility, the Saxon (German) patrician class, and the free military Székelys.László Fosztó: Ritual Revitalisation After Socialism: Community, Personhood, and Conversion among Roma in a Transylvanian Village, Halle-Wittenberg, 2007 The union was directed against the whole of the peasantry, regardless of ethnicity, in response to the Transylvanian peasant revolt. In this feudal estate parliament, the peasants (whether Hungarian, Saxon, Székely or Romanian in origin) were not represented, and they did not benefit from its acts, as the commoners were not considered to be members of these feudal "nations".

The coalition of the "Three Nations" retained its legal representative monopoly under the prince as before the split of the medieval Hungarian Kingdom occasioned by the Ottoman invasions. According to Dennis P. Hupchick, though there were occasional clashes between the Hungarian plainsmen and the Székely mountaineers, they were united under the patronymic "Magyars" and, with Saxon support, formed a common front against the predominantly Romanian peasantry.

Demographic evolution